MP makes final plea to save children's heart unit

DAVID Miliband has made a final plea to keep children’s heart surgery on Tyneside.

South Shields MP David Miliband, talks to Adriana Priano, eight, and her dad Joseph, with surgeon Asif Hasan in the heart unit

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DAVID Miliband has made a final plea to keep children’s heart surgery on Tyneside.

The South Shields MP met with bosses at the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle as a key public consultation period into the future of heart surgery ended.

An NHS review will lead to the number of hospitals performing operations cut from the current 11 to six or seven regional centres.

One of the outcomes would leave youngsters from the North East having to travel hundreds of miles for treatment.

Mr Miliband toured the ward and met patients and their families before urging the Government to keep surgery at the Freeman and support efforts to help the unit grow.

“Some of the children on the ward are only a few months old and they’re getting world class treatment,” he said.

“This is a world beating unit, it’s not just a regional leader, it’s a national leader.”

Concerns have been raised that the decision could be influenced by politicians in other parts of the country.

But Mr Miliband said he was confident the children’s heart unit at the Freeman would be allowed to continue its work if the quality of facilities and staff were properly considered.

He said: “We want to make sure the decision making is done on medical grounds rather than political grounds.

“This is about the lives of vulnerable children and I’m very proud to support the work that’s been done here.”

The former Foreign Secretary backed the Chronicle’s Keep Our Children’s Heart Unit campaign and said readers had shown “great common sense” by supporting efforts to keep the unit open.

“The whole campaign has been born not just of regional pride but also a sense of the work that’s done here, this was the first place to do transplants,” he said.

“We want to see it grow, not just kept as it is but helped to grow. This is about the best medical outcome which we think should be led from this region.

“I think quality should always come first and as long as this is the basis on which this is done there’s nothing to fear.”

Mr Miliband has also written to Health Secretary Andrew Lansley to make the case for the Newcastle unit. In the letter he said the Freeman had a national and worldwide reputation for helping children and their families.